I picked this book out of my pile because my daughter has just booked her trip to Florence so I thought that was great timing. Meg has been in love with the idea of Florence since she was a small child and her beloved grandmother promised her a trip there. But when her Grandma died when Meg was 12 without being able to fulfill that promise her Dad promised he would step in and take her. As much as she loves him though, her Dad has never been good at doing what he promises. Not wanting to give up hope, Meg is surprised when her Dad sends her an airline ticket and cash card to take the trip. But it's under less than up front circumstances but Meg leaves anyway sure that he will meet her there. And while there she can meet with authors that deal with the publishing company she is working for and check out a new author they want to introduce her to. Sophia Borelli is only too happy to show Meg around the city of Florence and to show Meg more chapters from her book. Claiming to be an only survivor of the Medici family, Meg's bosses want her to find proof of Sophia's claim before they will do anything with the book. But when Sophia starts saying she can hear an old Medici princess Nora, speaking to her through statues and paintings, Meg starts to get caught up in Sophia's world of masterpieces and the Italian Renaissance.
I gotta admit this started slow for me and never really did pick up or grab me. I found my mind wandering through out the story as I read, to the point where I could not even really remember all that much about the story to write the review, especially the historical parts about Nora and the Medici family and Sophia and her hearing things from Nora through the works of art. I found myself skipping some sentences and paragraphs and I didn't engage with the characters. This book does have great reviews on Amazon, however, so other readers did enjoy it. Though I did enjoy the descriptions of Florence, not sure what my thing was, but I just wasn't into this story.
I gave this one a 5/10 not because it was a bad story or bad writing but because I just couldn't engage with it.
4 comments:
Is the character hearing literal voices from art? Weird.
i can't wrap my brain around the fact that one of the characters hears voices through art. that's a bit out there for me. I started a book about a week ago and just could NOT get into it!! I can't remember the title now but i said to my self i am NOT wasting time with this. plus the language was horrible.
It's all explained as the story works itself out.
I wasn’t as engaged w the Medici parallel story, but I liked the interaction between Meg and Sophia and Lorenzo. The lyrical language describing Florence made the book feel almost like a travelogue. I enjoyed the story very well :-)
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